Tag Archives: slabby

Bike of the Month November 2019

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Wintertime, the offseason; pumpkin-spice everything, snow, iceskating, Christmas… Don’t you hate it?

I do; I’d rather be basking in sunshine, hooning the backroads on my EFE or trying to get that one lap even better than the one before on my next trackday. Another thing wrong with autumn/winter is basically, the lack of light and all that comes with that very fact. My motivation grinds to a halt, nothing gets done and that in turn demotivates even more.

However, you need the time off to get the bikes you broke during the summer preceding it, or building the racebike you dreamt up in your head, to attack the circuits next year.  I’m usually of the the former variety, breaking more than planned, having other projects taking a backseat to whatever I have to bodge first, to get myself underway again.

This also is less than inspiring and pretty much takes the fun out of it and turns it into frustration. One solution to turn all this around and get my mojo back to go and do something myself, is to read about others building their bikes. Most are built to a standard well above my ability, but it doesn’t hurt to have something to strive for.

Trackaddict as I’ve become, I get properly excited when I find true racemachines being built out off the bikes of our penchant. Probably because in my head, it gets translated to; “I can do that” (I can’t) but again, these OSS-bikes appeal more to me than other bikes, for obvious reasons, and get the blood flowing just a bit more than the next late-model superbike.

Duncan’s Slabby you see here, is one of those bikes. Purpose built for the Thunderbike championship, no shortcuts were taken and everything on the bike is there, because it needs to be.

Reading through the buildthread started all the way back in 2016, it’s a tale of triumph and defeat, coming out the other side, chin up and ready for more. Member of our Winged Hammer OSS-raceteam, I’m quite proud to see this bike used for what it’s built for, ridden on and over the very limit, making it better everytime the tires hit the tarmac and also, beating more modern motorcycles just because he can.

I met Duncan last summer when we both attended a weekend of trackday-fun at Cadwell; supernice guy and you wouldn’t think for a second he’s the Take-No-Prisoners racer that he is when the visor goes down. The bike too; it’s a black Slabby with gold wheels, until you start to look properly. Detail upon detail is found and it makes me want to start building my bikes to the standard this is.

I can’t, but I can try..

Congratulations Dupersunc, your bike is this month’s Bike of the Month

Discuss here

Buildtread here  

Bike of the Month March 2019 – Suzuki GSXR 750 H

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Slabbies, I love them. The GSXR 750 was such a radical new model back in the day when they were first launched, they have become very desirable today and are ripe for both subtle and serious modifications.

GSXR 750

So when I first saw pictures of b-slayer’s GSXR 750 H in it’s very sorry state, I thought the same as you probably did… ‘this has got potential’. Little could we have imagined how trick it would end up being… a real ‘zero to hero’ build.

Suzuki GSXR 750 H

Having started his project thread, b-slayer shared some photos of the horrendous state of the bike when he first got it and then the in-between stages of his build. Some of the bodges, wow!

Suzuki GSXR 750 H
Suzuki GSXR 750 H
Suzuki GSXR 750 H

There are several more, often scary ones on the project thread.

Progress was made and the bike was back on the road in a few different guises before it’s final new trick state.

Suzuki GSXR 750 H
Suzuki GSXR 750 H
Suzuki GSXR 750 H
Suzuki GSXR 750 H

Some nice details along the way too, much more than righting the previous owner bodges.

Suzuki GSXR 750 H
Suzuki GSXR 750 H

Then, time for the finishing touches.

Suzuki GSXR 750 H

Finally, just wow! Hard to believe that this is the same GSXR 750.

Suzuki GSXR 750 H

What a fantastic end result, looking very clean and period yet with some very appropriate improvements.

So, b-slayer congratulations! Your GSXR 750 is this months BOTM.

Read the project thread here.

Discuss this article here.

Bike of the Month July 2017

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Some of you may know of my fascination with Eighties Movies; I absolutely love them. To be honest, I’m not totally sure why myself; could be the cars, the music, the girls, anything. One thing that returns in pretty much all these films is that perseverance and doing the right thing, will alway get you on top. In the 90ish minutes most of these films take, our lead character will fight his or her way though all matter of obstacles, an epic montage for good measure, with the end of the movie wrapping up with the championship/the girl/the car/ saving the planet (remember Wargames?)


This Slabbie that Leblowski has built, reminds me of those movies. The buildthread reads as a moviescript with some things hard to be believed, yet they all really happened.


Starting on the backfoot with a heavy operation and a bike most normal people would’ve called a scrapper, Leblowski took it upon himself to get the bike built to enter in the Bikers Classics Festival at Spa Francorchamps which he had attended as a spectator many times before.


Cutting it as close as you like with having the bike first run on the Dyno only days before the event and arriving at Spa with the paint only literally just dry from application, the bike proved to be absolutely perfect. Finished to a standard most of us can only dream of and the frame so heavily modified, it may be the most extreme Slabbie in existence. You’d have to look for it though, because you really can’t tell if you just casually walk past.


Now Spa is out of the way, this bike will be used for more track outings as part of the #TeamBanana “racingteam”.

I take my hat off for Leblowski, doing this project and taking it as far as he did, I know very few people so determined to make their vision a reality.

Leblowski, your Slabbie is this months BOTM
Read the whole script here

Fitting a 916-style Steering Damper

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By Banoffee.

My slabby has a lively front end, so I’ve been wanting to fit a steering damper for ages. I even acquired the period Daytona fitting kit and damper however couldn’t get that to work with my USD front end. So, seeing as I wasn’t keen on modifying the frame to take a bolt-on side mounted damper the only option left was a 916-style fitment. Seeing as I’m running an Ohlins rear shock, the damper had to be Ohlins to match of course!

Basic theory:
Whilst steering damper manufacturers don’t list fitting kits for oldskool bikes, it’s actually a simple matter of taking the measurements and then doing some research to find a suitable kit (or parts from several kits).

The measurements: (Note – some measurements are taken with internal vernier edges, some external. These are just shown to illustrate, you should of course check your own measurements carefully!)

A: Yoke nut centre to tank front mount centre

AB: Top of tank mount to top of top yoke

BC: Between centre of tank front mount bolts

CD: Between LH lock and centre (then multiplied by 2)

DThe research:
I took a tape measure with me to bike meets, bike shops etc to measure up more modern bikes (with owners permissions of course when they were about!) and also bothered a few people selling kits on ‘that auction site’.

My bike:
(750G with 400gk76a USD front end)
A: approx 50mm
B: approx 60mm
C: approx 50mm
D: approx 60mm

Things to note:
On my slabby, the damper is quite close (5-10mm) to the tank. Double, triple check all measurements to ensure it won’t foul anwwhere.
Source the fitting kit before buying a damper so that you can mock up and modify if necessary. Setting a good search on ‘that auction site’ makes this surprisingly easy and cost-effective.
For the damper stroke, obviously err on the side of slightly longer but not too long as it will look unbalanced.

The result:
I picked up a 2000-model H*nda Firebl*de Harris fitting kit from ‘that auction site’ for a whopping �20. Measurements were near-perfect as a 1-2mm on the tank mount, etc. is just fine. Only slight drawback was 30mm lower ‘B measurement’ so I acquired a 30mm tubular spacer.

EMy ‘D measurement’ (remember to multiply by 2 of course!) meant an approx 60mm stroke damper so I ordered a 63mm stroke Ohlins damper from BikeStuff (cheers Rich!).
In the pics below you can see the finished result. I’ve lost a tiny amount of right-lock, however, eventually I’ll get a spacer made up to under the tank-mount part which will solve that. All-in-all I’m well pleased!

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